AR7E - Alcester Racing 7's Equipe
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Nobody wants to have an accident in a 7 - but as almost every weekend of racing shows, the 7's spaceframe is remarkably strong and injuries are rare. The one area where safety is less than perfect is in a side-impact. Typically, there is less than an inch of material between the driver and the 'assassin' - and most of it is only just above hip-height.
<Click Image for Full Size> Caterham address this partially by filling the side panels with aluminium honeycomb (basically an aluminium version of corrugated cardboard). This is pretty good at absorbing energy - but isn't going to help too much, unfortunately. Scuttle-mounted HandbrakeInterestingly (for the academic, not for the poor driver), one of the reasons why race chassis, such as ours, do not have a tunnel mounted handbrake is because this strengthens the tunnel significantly. So what's wrong with that? Well, if you do get hit in the side of the car, the side panel is going to try and crush into the driver, and this will push him into the transmission tunnel. If the tunnel is relatively strong, the driver will be crushed (eek!). The weaker 'handbrakeless' tunnel allows for more energy absorption, and lesser injuries, one hopes... A full cage is out of the question for road-use - so what else can be done? Intrusion BarsBasically, there are only two real options - the first of which is fitted as standard to Academy race chassis such as ours: Rear Wheel Intrusion Bar (RWIB)
<Click Image for Full Size> You can see the RWIB in this picture - it bolts to the chassis just in front of the rear axle and then swings up beside the driver before bolting to the chassis again through the side panel just below the 'door' sill. The purpose of this bar is - as the name suggests - to stop the rear wheel entering the cockpit in the event of a major rear-wards impact - but it also provides a modicum of side protection. A better solution is the.... Side Impact Protection Bar (SIB)
Click Image for Labelled Full Size This bar is securely bolted to the chassis just behind the drivers right shoulder (next to the roll-bar mount). It then follows the line of the drivers arm diagonally down the side of the car until it meets the RWIB mounting point (see above) - the SIB and RWIB share a common bolt onto the chassis at this point. The SIB then continues down the side of the car and disappears at 90 degrees under the floor where it bolts to a chassis member directly under the driver knees.
As the SIB is raised above the sill of the drivers 'door', and as it starts at the drivers shoulder, it provides (we hope...) significant extra protection and energy absorption with a relatively small weight penalty. The only real drawback with a SIB is that full side-screens can no-longer be used - but it works perfectly well with half-doors. |
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